Weekly CryptoNews

11:41 23.11.2018

Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin (LTC):“You can’t regulate something without controlling it … If states are very friendly and welcoming to it (which they should be) that would be better, but even if they put a ban on Bitcoin, people will still use Bitcoin … There’s a saying which I don’t think is passed around enough anymore and that’s “You can take your country out of Bitcoin, but you can’t take Bitcoin out of your country.” And it’s very true.”

On Monday, Bitcoin crossed the psychological level at $5,000, testing the ground below $4,300. The analysts tell two main reasons for this slump. At first, the recent hard fork of Bitcoin Cash added uncertainties to the market. The hard fork happened due to the conflict resulted in the creation of two blockchains: Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV. This led to a creation of two different coins listed to various exchanges, which started to battle over the hash power. In addition, the recent US Securities and Exchange Commission comments against ICOs disappointed the investors. The regulator applied penalties against two cryptocurrency companies because they failed to register initial coin offerings as securities. It’s also worth to mention, that the risk-off sentiment across equity markets might contribute to the bitcoin losses. On Wednesday, buyers pushed the price above the $4,700 level but did not manage to hold it. Today, the granddad of cryptocurrencies has already tested the support at $4,258. More uncertainties will pull its price below this level. If bulls are strong, Bitcoin can rise towards the resistance at $4,750.

In other news:

Chinese miners drop out of business. One of the Chinese mining pools F2Pool announced the recent collapse of a price forced companies to fire thousands of miners to stop losses.

Chainalysis counted that the number of bitcoin payments decreased by 80% since December 2017 because of the recent Bitcoin plunge.

Cryptocurrency exchange platform OKEx closed positions in the amount of 135 million dollars without any warning. That’s why traders had big losses.

Altcoins:

Bitcoin ABC can be called a winner of the “hash war” as most of the crypto exchanges and CoinMarketCap accepted it as BitcoinCash adherent. As for BCH SV, it was accepted as a separate coin. Will the bleeding of the crypto market stop as the war ended?

Grant Thornton International approved stablecoin USDC is backed by US dollars.

Regulations:

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will launch its own cryptocurrency in 2019. It will be used as an internal currency for trans-border transactions between the banks.

Since January 1, 3000 cigarette stores in France are planning to launch operations in Bitcoin.

New releases:

The launch of a new trading platform Bakkt and start of Bitcoin-futures trades was postponed to January 24, 2019.